Course Overview

This graduate seminar covers a wide variety of topics associated with political parties, party systems, and elections.
It introduces students to a core selection of texts as well as some more recent developments on the comparative study of political parties and elections.
While the classic literature in this subfield focuses mainly upon the advanced industrial democracies in Western Europe, we shall also broaden our scope to investigate these topics in many different types of settings.
For example, with the transitions to democracy across the world numerous questions are beginning to be addressed for the first time in countries outside of Western Europe.
How do these new cases affect the generalizations built upon the European parties and elections?

There are many different theoretical and methodological topics that we will discuss during this semester.
In order to cover as many materials as possible, a division of labor is required.
All students will read a certain amount of material in common as indicated on the syllabus.
Besides, every week one student will prepare a 3-page annotated bibliography of additional readings on the topic for that week.
The annotated bibliography and a short 10 minutes presentation of it during class account for 20% of your course grade.

In addition, every week a 3-page paper is required from each student, except the one who prepares that week's annotated bibliography.
The paper should review and evaluate all (or almost all) of the week's readings, focusing on some of the key concepts, assumptions, major arguments, debates, methodology, measurement issues, substantive contributions, and/or empirical or theoretical implications.
The papers will constitute 30% of your final grade.
The paper and the annotated bibliography should be posted on the course blog by the Sunday afternoon before each class.
Seminar participation for all students will constitute 20% of the course grade.

Finally, there is a research design that will account for 30% of grade.
You should approach this research design as the "front half" of a journal article, including a literature review, theory, methodology, and discussion of data sources.
Ideally, your research design would make a contribution to the current debate in one of the many research programs in the comparative study of parties and elections.
On April 21, each student will present his or her research design in class so that comments, suggestions, or criticism can be given for the final revision.
The final research design paper is due at noon on Monday, May 5.

The following books are used in their entirety (or almost so) in this course:

Carey, John M., and Matthew Soberg Shugart, eds. 1998. Executive Decree Authority: Calling Out the Tanks, or Filling Out the Forms? New York: Cambridge University Press. Introduction and Conclusion, and choose 2 country chapters.

Katz, Richard S. and Peter Mair. 2002. "The Ascendancy of the Party in Public Office: Party Organizational Change in Twentieth-Century Democracies." Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges, edited by Richard Gunther, Jose Ramon Montero, and Juan J. Linz. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Kirchheimer, Otto. 1966. "The Transformation of the Western European Party Systems." Political Parties and Political Development, edited by Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 177-200.